The Pact (4 page)

6

“And so you can see that by this calculation we get the clearance which is defined as the volume of plasma per unit time that is cleared of a substance by the kidney. The clearance of certain substances can give us an estimate of the glomerular filtration rate which in turn gives us...?”

Parva
turned round from the diagrams and formulae she had scribbled on the classroom whiteboard to behold nine confused-looking teenaged faces, and one that probably would have looked confused if it had been awake.

She
looked back to the cross-section through the kidney she had drawn two hours ago, then at the diagram of the glomerulus, the part of the kidney that filtered the blood. It all looked straightforward enough to her. Had she gone through it all too quickly?

“
No one?”

A
hand was raised tentatively into the air.

“Samantha?”
Parva pointed at the girl with long dark hair seated on the far left of the row who was venturing to say something.

“Please,
miss - is it an index of the function of the kidney?”

Parva
breathed a sigh of relief. At least something had gone in this afternoon.

“Exactly.
Now, does everyone else see why that should be?”

Silence.

“I’ll be taking that as a yes if no one shouts out now.”

Still
silence.

“A
‘yes’ or perhaps an ‘I don’t care’?” Still no response. “Either way, I think we’re finished here for today.”
I certainly am
, Parva thought, as the school bell rang. She had never been more relieved to hear such a noise. “Your assignment tonight is to read the chapter on renal physiology in your textbooks,” she called as the girls slid off their chairs and sloped toward the exit, presumably stunned by two hours of science.
Thank god it hadn’t been physics
, Parva thought with a grin -
they’d probably be in need of emergency medical aid
.

O
ne girl who wasn’t leaving with the others looked as if she might need it anyway.

She
had been sitting on her own, in the row behind the other girls, for the entire lesson. Now as the others sidled out she stayed put, regarding Parva with eyes that looked worried. She hadn’t said a thing during the afternoon, but that hadn’t made her any different from ninety per cent of the class. Parva tried to remember the name she had told her at the beginning but couldn’t bring it to mind.

“Don’t
worry,” said the girl as Parva struggled, “no one ever remembers my name.” She clutched at the capacious bag on the desk in front of her, the one she had been hiding behind for most of the lesson. The pale brown sacking decorated with badges and jangling charms looked almost homemade, but the lines were a bit too neat, the shoulder strap buckle looked to be engrained with semi-precious stones, and the whole thing had a ‘worn chic‘ look to it that meant it had probably cost several hundred pounds at a London boutique.

“No,
it’s...”
Come on, there were only ten of them in the class!
“...Emily,” Parva said, trying her best to keep the triumph out of her voice.

“You
probably wrote it down to help you remember.”

“I
didn’t actually.” Parva wondered what the girl wanted, apart from some human contact. “I like to think I can remember everything I get told.”

“Everything?”

Parva nodded.

“Ok,
then remember this.” Emily was getting to her feet. “You should leave this place now. Get out while you still can. I know you won’t because no one ever listens to me.
They
didn’t listen to me.” She gathered her bag to her. It rattled as she did so.

“They?”
Parva frowned and took a step towards her. “Do you mean the girls who died?”

Emily
nodded. The hand that wasn’t holding the bag clawed at her lower lip with nervous fingers. “They didn’t listen. I told them to leave it alone but they wouldn’t. You should leave it alone, too.”

“Leave
what alone?”

Emily
was close to the door now. Parva willed her to stay - she didn’t want to be seen chasing girls into the corridor on her first day there.

“You’ll
see, if you stay long enough,” came the reply. “Which you shouldn’t do. But you will, won’t you?”

“I’ll
stay as long as I need to,” Parva said. “But no longer, if that makes you feel any better.”

Emily
made to open the door, then turned and gave Parva a suspicious look. “Are you the one Jocelyn saw on the way here?”

Parva
shrugged. “How should I know?” she said.

“You
should,” said Emily. “It was your car that nearly ran her over.”

And
with that she was gone, leaving Parva with an empty classroom, a whiteboard filled with science, and the wish that real life could be so easily explained as the scribbling behind her. She’d need to talk to Emily again, of course, but gaining the girl’s trust wasn’t going to be easy. The afternoon hadn’t been a complete waste of time, though. Now she had a name for the girl who had emerged from the hedge in the pouring rain and stopped for a moment in front of her. Jocelyn had looked distressed, wet, and was quite possibly injured. Parva switched off the lights and decided to take a little tour of the campus.

One
that would include the infirmary as her first stop.

7

“No one has come in today at all.”

The
school matron’s name was Jan Waters. She was fifty, plump, and behaved as if the last thirty years hadn’t happened. Which, Parva, supposed, had probably been to her advantage when she had applied for the job.

Parva
looked at the empty beds before her, five on each side of the room, their heads against each lime green painted wall. Just like in the old days.

“I
was just a bit worried,” Parva explained. “When I was on my way here I thought I saw someone dashing across the road in the rain.”

“Probably
part of a cross-country run,” said the nurse. “We do pride ourselves on keeping our young ladies in the peak of physical health.”

Then why do you need so many beds?
“That’s good to hear, but I don’t think this was part of any programmed physical activity. She was wearing a dress, for one thing.”

“If
she wasn’t wearing uniform or sports kit then I think it’s highly unlikely it was one of our girls.” Matron Waters was shaking her head. “Far more likely it was someone local, out walking her dog or perhaps wandering onto our grounds by mistake. It does happen you know, more often than you might think.”

Really? With this school priding itself on being in the middle of nowhere?
“Of course,” said Parva with an apologetic look. “I’m so sorry for wasting your time.”

The
matron gave her a thin smile. “Not at all,” she said. “And at least now you know where you’ll be brought if anything should happen to you.”

She
might never have heard less comforting words, Parva thought as she walked back through the grounds. The infirmary was located beyond the residence blocks at the far end of the campus, presumably to provide its patients with a quiet environment for them to recuperate in. It might also provide an ideal environment for anyone who wished to carry out any secret activities for which they would prefer to remain undisturbed.

But it seemed as if there were a lot of places like that around here. And there certainly didn’t seem to be that many pupils. Apart from a couple on her arrival, the only girls Parva had seen all day had been in her biology class this afternoon. Perhaps everyone was keeping a low profile after what had happened, she thought as she made her way to the staff common room.

The
door was panelled in oak and actually had ‘Mistresses Common Room’ in gothic gold script on the plate. It took a bit of a shove to get in open and, once Parva was inside, she found herself coughing as she waved away the fog of cigarette smoke that greeted her.

“Is
that the new girl?”

There
was a clatter of snooker balls followed by the rumble of what sounded like several of them being potted at the same time. An arm clad in tweed extended a hand from the gloom, to be followed by the rest of the grinning, corpulent woman it belonged to.

“Amanda
Plumridge - pleased to meet you.” Her grip was almost crushing. “Maths and history.” She grimaced. “I know, it’s not a very good combination, is it? But pure mathematics was my degree course at Oxford and history’s always been a bit of a passion of mine so I thought, why not make the best of it and teach both? You’re bilge, aren’t you?”

Parva
wasn’t quite sure what to say to that. “Biology,” she replied, to be rewarded with a slap on the back.

“Always
called it bilge in my day. You know, makes you think of water filled with all the kinds of creepy crawlies you chaps like to play with. Worms, bugs, slime - that sort of thing.”

“It’s
not exactly that.”

“Of
course not! I’m sure there’s a whole stack of other stuff as well, including all that gooey bodily stuff best not mentioned, eh?” Amanda lit another one of the cigars that must have been responsible for the cloud that still hung heavy in the room. “Although nowadays you have to tell these girls something or they get into all kinds of trouble. Oh I’m sorry - would you care for one?”

Parva
politely declined the offer of a cigar so large it would probably have choked her. “I don’t smoke,” she said.

“You
will once you’ve been here for a few months,” said Amanda confidently. “Either that or pick up some worse habit. You’ll need something to help keep you sane.”

“How
long have you been here?”

Amanda
took a deep breath and then blew smoke over Parva’s head as she thought. “Must be coming up to three years, now. Good God, it still feels like yesterday that I arrived. In fact until you turned up I was pretty much the new girl around here myself.” She gestured behind her. Now the cigar was close to her, the fog bank further back in the room was starting to clear. Parva could see that the walls were panelled in the same wood as the door, and that the rear of the room was indeed taken up by a green baize-covered snooker table. No one was playing. There were, however, a couple of forms slowly becoming visible as the smoke cleared. Each was seated in the sort of comfortable-looking armchair’s Parva’s maiden aunt used to keep close to the fire.

“Denise
has been her for at least five years, haven’t you, Denise?”

A
middle-aged woman with curly grey hair looked up from a battered paperback copy of Dostoevsky’s
Crime and Punishment
, gave a grunt, and then went back to her reading.

“Denise
McCulloch teaches English literature,” Amanda whispered. “As a consequence she’s developed such a hatred of many of the books she used to love, all she can read at the moment are Russian classics.”

“That’s
a bit of a shame,” said Parva as she gave Denise a thin smile.

“Oh
it’ll pass - she’ll be onto Balzac or Proust or someone by next week - just you see.” Amanda pointed at the younger woman opposite who was engrossed in something by Dan Brown.

“Ruth
Watkins - geography and art. You might think it’s another odd combination but I’ll tell you she can paint bloody good maps.” She shouted across: “Can’t you, Ruth?”

“Fuck
off,” said Ruth, causing Denise to harumph loudly from behind the cover picture of old Fyodor.

“No
love lost there, as you can probably tell,” Amanda whispered again before picking up a snooker cue. “I don’t suppose you play?”

“Not
for some time,” Parva replied. “Although I used to be pretty good.” Amanda beamed and Parva realised she might have suddenly made a new best friend. “Fancy a game, then?”

Parva
smiled. “Perhaps later,” she said. “I thought it would be worth me getting all the introductions out of the way today. Is there anyone else I should meet?”

“Well
old Arby - that’s Miss Arbuthnot - teaches the classics and has been trying to cover some basic science; Rachel Tamerlain teaches languages - French, Spanish, and a smattering of German - you know, enough to get you lager, sausages and a room for the night but that’s about it - you’ll like her, she’s a real hoot; and then there’s old Metal Mickey.”

“Who?”

“Michaela Struthers - gym and games. And yes, she’s exactly like the image you’ve got in your head right now. She never comes in here. Spends most of her time out on the playing fields or swinging weights around.” Amanda looked wistful. “It must be nice when your job also happens to be your addiction. Anyway, you’ll know her when you meet her. No idea where Rachel’s got to. After all, it isn’t as if the common room doesn’t cater to her needs.”

Amanda
opened the lid of what Parva had assumed was just a free standing globe of the world to reveal a well-stocked drinks cabinet. “If you don’t fancy a game perhaps I can interest you in something? I make a mean gin sling.”

“I’m
sure you do,” said Parva, trying to stifle a giggle. “But it wouldn’t look good if I got drunk on my first night here, now would it?”

Amanda
closed the lid. “You’re probably right,” she said. “Has Arby put you in Pelham House?”

“If
that’s the one that looks like it should have bats flying around the roof, then yes,” Parva grinned.

“That’s
the one.” Amanda nodded. “We’ve all got rooms in there. Quite a nice set up, actually - a bit like a studio apartment. The bed’s in one corner, main area for living in, and then a tiny kitchenette where, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can probably make toast.”

“I
only saw it briefly when I dumped my bags there,” said Parva. “I didn’t notice any kitchen area.” She paused to allow Amanda to think the next question, the one she had been harbouring for the last couple of hours, had only just occurred to her.

“I
haven’t seen many of the pupils around?”

“That’s
because there aren’t that many,” came the reply. “Arby might have given you some grand tale about the school having gone from strength to strength over the years, but the truth is numbers have declined recently. There just aren’t that many parents cruel enough to want to lock their children away in the past and forget about them anymore. I suppose we should feel glad for all the little dears who’ve managed to escape this place.”

“You
don’t like it then?”

“Me?”
Amanda looked shocked. “I love it. Suits me down to the ground. But I’m not institutionalised enough to think everyone would like to stay here. In fact I can’t imagine most people wanting to stay.” She looked at Parva. “Including you.”

Parva
ignored her. “How many pupils are there here now?”

“Well
there were about eighty but after the little bit of trouble we had I’d say the numbers closer to sixty now, what with some of the parents deciding it wasn’t safe for their daughters to stay here.”

Then
ten in a biology class wasn’t that bad, Parva thought, although who knew how many there would be next time. She made for the door.

“And
now that you’ve mentioned my room,” she said, “I really should be getting back to do some unpacking. It’s been lovely to meet you all.”

Amanda
beamed, while the other two might have given her an acknowledging grunt - it was difficult to tell.